Oak & Ash – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the pop rock band, Oak & Ash, chat about what they do before taking the stage. You can check out what they do and listen to their newest single, “Jungle”, after the break.

It seems most fitting for us to talk about our pre-show rituals because that is the main reason we play music. Live music is what we live for and fuels us to keep writing and playing.

Waking up on a show day doesn’t get old for us. We like to try and take it easy in the morning to save our energy for the gig. Through the day we’ll watch/listen to a wide range of music that pumps us up and gives us inspiration for the night. When we take the stage for soundcheck we’re a bit more serious. This part running smoothly is key to keeping pre-show nerves down. On the stage, we get a little taste of how the night will sound so when we hop off the mood has kicked up a bit.

We’ll usually scope the area for some good food and drinks during downtime. Nothing too heavy for us before a show so the go-to’s are sushi or noodles and whiskey or mezcal. When we make it back to the stage Rich and Bryan start their warm-ups. Rich’s vocal warmup is pretty fun to listen to and begins with some wild noises but ends in some truly angelic vocal runs that most anybody would swoon over. Bryan sits with his drum pad and starts with a slow pitter-patter of drumsticks that over several minutes becomes inhumanly fast but perfectly in time.

On stage we usually all wear black and white which you would think makes the outfit choices easy, but Chris always shows up with a few extra colorful choices to try out, and Rich will have a few shirts to steam the wrinkles out of with his hand steamer before settling. In the last 10 minutes before getting on stage Bryan and Paul do a round of pushups to get the energy flowing then the four of us huddle up. The beginning of the huddle will vary a bit but at the end, we all cheers to the moon and back (knowing we may never come back). We walk out on stage and the rest you’ll just have to come see a show to find out about.

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